Often, the best way to cure an illness
is to health it. Health is the best illness preventative. However,
health is deliberate, honest and slow. When an illness is an
emergency, external interventions are necessary.

MERCK recognizes that they are
dangerous, requiring a prescription for the safety of the patient,
and that they can have dangerous side effects and often kill
patients. Complementary and alternative medicines are green. They
create and improve healthiness, they are supportive, generally safe,
and healthy.

Healthicines include both conventional
medicines, and complementary and alternative medicines. The
descriptions in MERCK is simplistic, and as we shall see, the MERCK
manual itself contradicts these definitions.

There are two important errors in the
MERCK summary of Conventional Medicine and Complementary and
Alternative Medicines (CAM). The first error is the assumption
that CAM does not include the concepts of conventional medicine.

CAM is, even by the name,
'complementary' and alternative medicine. CAM accepts and includes
many concepts of conventional medicine, although different
practitioners of alternative medicine differ in which aspects of
conventional medicine they support. The concepts of CAM take
medicines further - towards healthiness.

The second error made in the MERCK
summary, is the belief that these differences are actually related
to health and illness. They are not. The only real distinction
between conventional medicines and alternative medicines is that
alternative medicines are judged 'non-conventional' by some
practitioners of conventional medicine.

The differences between conventional
medicine, and alternative medicine, as defined by MERCK, are
differences in 'viewpoint'. The medical viewpoint sees everything
through the lens of disease. Alternative medicine is more likely to
use a 'health lens', using a disease viewpoint when necessary.

Conventional medicine treats by
'fighting the disease', while alternative medicine tries to improve
the health of the patient, fighting the disease when necessary or
appropriate. Conventional medicine views health as the absence of
disease, while alternative medicine views health as something that
can be improved, optimized, even when you have no disease.

Conventional medicine is the disease
view. Complementary and alternative medicine is a health view.

Which view is more complete?

Which view is more effective?

Which view is correct?

Illness is a subset, a small part of
healthiness, as medicine is a small part of healthicine.

It is silly, and clearly shows a lack of
understanding, and lack of imagination, to claim that one view is
'correct' and the other is 'incorrect'. Both views have merit in
specific situations. Each can be very effective in specific
situations.

MERCK, in their description of
Complementary and Alternative Medicines, says "Complementary and
alternative medicine (CAM) refers to healing approaches and
therapies that are not based on principles of mainstream,
conventional medicine."

Is this really true? No.

There are many illnesses and therapies,
documented in MERCK, that clearly adopt the principles of
complementary and alternative medicine. There are at least three
general classes of illness and treatment:

Nutrition

All studies of nutrition are based on
the concepts of "balance, resilience,
and integrity of the body", treatments for nutritional
deficiencies are based on "support
and strengthening of patients' inherent capacity for self-healing".

The diseases that result from
nutritional deficiencies are "Imbalance
of body, mind, and spirit".

These are illnesses that do not fit the
model of conventional medicine, ("Disease
based: Dysfunction of organs or biochemical processes"),
rather, they perfectly fit the model of alternative medicines. The
treatments recommended by MERCK are to health the diet of the
patient, and if necessary, provide supplements.

The entire first section of the MERCK
Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy is about nutrition. There are
many illnesses of nutritional imbalance - deficiency or excess,
listed in MERCK. All of these illnesses fit the Complementary and
Alternative view of medicine - none fit the 'conventional medicine'
view.

How many illnesses are based on
nutritional deficiencies? Frankly, we don't know.

There are about 20 essential
micro-nutrients, vitamins and minerals, depending on who you ask.
Each of which will result in a specific illness if deficient. We
believe there are about 100 nutrients essential to health, but we're
not sure how many, not sure if different people have different
essential nutrients, not sure if our individual essential nutrient
requirements change as we grow from babies to adults.

So, in theory, there are over 100
simple illnesses, illnesses with single causes, that fit the
Complementary and Alternative Medicine model - and do not fit the
Conventional Medicine model.

What about combinations of nutritional
deficiency?

Healthy bones require many nutrients,
and bone diseases like osteoporosis can result from not just single
deficiencies, but also from combinations of deficiencies and also
from imbalances of nutrients. How many combinations of nutritional
deficiency cause disease?

There are billions (100 factorial) of
potential combinations of nutritional deficiencies that might cause
specific diseases - but only a few have been clearly identified by
conventional medicine.

There are many illnesses that are simply
not understood, or where the cause is not known, documented in the
MERCK manual. Many of these could be the result of complex
nutritional deficiencies or excesses.

The view of MERCK, creating a
demarcation line between conventional medicines, and complementary
and alternative medicines is an oversimplification. The view in
this image, is more complete.

Healthicines also includes
non-medicines. We don't always need medicines to improve health.
Healthicines are greener than green medicines.

Health is, after all, the best
preventative.

Toxicology

Opposite to the science of nutrition is
the study of toxic chemicals.

There are many elemental chemicals that
are toxic, and potentially billions of toxic chemical compounds. We
know many of them. Mercury is toxic, causing brain damage. So is
lead. Many plants and animals create new chemical toxins to protect
themselves from being eaten by other plants and animals.

When humans consume too much of these
toxins, we get different diseases.

These diseases also do not fit the
conventional medical model, they are not "Disease
based: Dysfunction of organs or biochemical processes", the
diseases that arise are not based on "Normal
function (i.e., absence of specific disease or dysfunction)",
rather - they are based on the presence of toxic chemicals, and the
treatment is not "External
interventions (e.g., drugs, surgery, radiation therapy" - the
treatment is to stop consuming the poisons, and heal the damage that
has been done.

The correct view of these illnesses, and
the correct treatments are those of Complementary and Alternative
Medicine, according to MERCK, and the treatments recommended by
MERCK fit the CAM model perfectly.

Physical Therapy

The third case where MERCK clearly
supports the concepts of complementary and alternative medicine, is
physical therapy.

When the best cure is physical therapy,
or exercise, MERCK does not recommend "External
interventions (e.g., drugs, surgery, radiation therapy",
instead - it often sends the patient to a physiotherapist or a
massage therapist.

When the patient needs physical therapy,
they don't need medicines, they need health.

Stress

There's also stress.

Conventional medicine recognizes that
many illnesses are caused by stress, although it often limits the
use of 'stress' to specific 'mental illnesses'. Even though it
recognizes that mental stress can weaken the body and make it more
susceptible to other illnesses.

Of course some are healthy stress - and
some are unhealthy stress. You might be ill because of a physical
stress that broke your arm, or a mental stress that causes you to
not eat a healthy diet, not get enough healthy exercise, or a
stressed depressed spirit. Depression is defined as a physical
illness by conventional medicine, and treated with drugs for the
brain, not the spirit.

Stress, in CAM, is 'imbalance
of body, mind, or spirit' that can lead to illness.

Healthicine goes farther, to
community, recognizing that health - and also illness - can come
from our communities. We can have unhealthy communities, and we can
be unhealthy in our community activities. War, genocide, murder,
theft and many other 'crimes' are illnesses of community, often
caused by stresses on or from our communities.

These illnesses are less frequent in
healthier communities, and less frequent in community members who
have a healthier community presence.

Conventional medicine, as defined by
MERCK, is a very limited view of health, of illness, treatment and
therapy. This view can be limited by the desires of conventional
medical practitioners to separate themselves from complementary and
alternative medical proponents.

Even so, most conventional medical
practitioners recognize the truth at least some of the time. Proof
can be found in many pages of the MERCK Manual of Diagnosis and
Therapy.